Page 60 of Bitten By the Basilisk

He chuckled as he withdrew from her. “You may need to remind me. My self-control is weak right now.”

Her heart twinged. She had avoided thinking about it so far, but as convinced as he was that they were meant to be together, she couldn’t forget that his kind was in its mating season. And not only was the moon out, but he was also in his shifted form—as susceptible as he’d ever be to his territorial instincts.

For her own sake, she needed to remember that.

Silas continued to drape her in jewelry, his breathing gradually becoming raspier. First, earrings made to look like snakes biting her earlobes, their tails each clinging to a single ruby. Then snake-shaped armbands. Then a pair of gem-studded bracelets that hung down the back of her hand from a chain looped around her middle finger.

He even tucked into her hair a set of ornaments—sprigs of gold leaves with ruby-encrusted flowers.

While she admired what she could of the result from over her shoulder, Silas reached into the lockbox. “I have one more piece I want you to wear.”

“What part of me have you not yet bedazzled?” she quipped, earning herself only a distracted chuckle. “Oh!”

Just as she turned to get a glimpse of whatever he’d picked up, she found herself being swept off her feet onto one of his coils that he’d slipped behind her. She threw her hands back on instinct, and they landed on his tail.

Before she knew it was happening, he lifted her leg through the beaded slit of her skirt. Another part of his tail—a thinner section near the tip—supported her knee while he slid a connected set of gold chains up her calf.

Unable to resist this chance to touch his tail, she slowly splayed her fingers, her heart beating rapidly. His scales were smooth individually but textured as an arrangement. Firm but not hard. Like his human skin, he felt cooler than her hands.

However much she wanted to stroke his scales and feel them flex over the muscles beneath, she took her hands back and kept them curled against her chest while he settled the leg chain’s thin elastic band around the top of her thigh.

The instant he was done, his tail tipped her into his embrace, making her yip. She braced her hand against the front of his shoulder, and his arm around her waist pulled her side flush against his chest.

He stared at the fine gold chains encircling her leg while his other hand pulled the elastic band a little higher, his fingertips skimming inches from her sex.

“We should head back soon. Shouldn’t we?” she whispered, yet made no move to pull away from him.

He turned his head, bringing their mouths close enough for them to feel each other’s breath, his gaze on her lips. “I’m…feeling conflicted.”

You and me both!

“Part of me wants to keep your beauty all to myself,” he went on. “Another wants everyone to see you wearing my gifts.”

Gifts?

Blinking, she pulled back as much as his embrace allowed. “Wait. Just so we’re clear, I’m only borrowing all this…right?”

His jaw flexed, then relaxed. “If you were only borrowing them, they wouldn’t be gifts, would they?”

“Huh?” she exclaimed, her eyes wide.

“However, if you’d rather not accept, I⁠—”

“I can’t,” she blurted, shaking her head so hard that her dangling earrings slapped her cheeks. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful—at all, but… I mean, how much is all this even worth?”

With a pensive hum, he began scanning her as though working on a guesstimate.

“Actually—” She raised her hand. “Don’t tell me. It’s better if I don’t know.”

Silas regarded her with amusement as he gently set her away from him and onto her feet. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

He then offered her his elbow, the length of his tail beginning to uncoil as he prepared to escort her back to the party.

“Shall we?”

Chapter Eighteen

Silas